Simulating lyme disease using parallel discrete event simulation

Lyme Disease affects many people in the northeastern United States. One of the most important mech anisms that sustains the epidemic is the interaction between white-footed mice (Peromyscus leuco pus) and deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis). When mice move around in their territory they carry diseased ticks to new locations. Our system simulates the different developmental stages of the tick through its active spring/summer period. The system uses the optimistic protocol for Parallel Discrete Event Simulation. In this paper, we present the model of the spread of the disease. We describe how we parallelize the problem, and we sketch a new global virtual time algorithm used in our system. We present performance benefits resulting from a parallel platform.